NAMSAP Makes WorkCompWire's Top Stories!

Today's issue of WorkCompRecap features the National Alliance of Medicare Set-Aside Professionals' Evidence-Based Medicine Committee's recent urging to CMS representatives to use more sensible pharmacy allocations in Workers' Comp MSAs (WCMSAs) that have chronic opioid prescriptions.

NAMSAP noted that it feels that the recommendations section of the WCMSA approval letter sends the wrong message to beneficiaries about the efficacy and safe duration of opioid usage without acknowledging the likelihood of misuse and abuse when taken chronically. It also suggested that these WCMSAs overfund beneficiaries' anticipated future medical needs because the opioids are priced in dosages that were never meant to be taken over life expectancy. NAMSAP proposed CMS use its own Reference Guide to bring evidence-based guidelines to the recommended WCMSA allocations for claims with opioid prescriptions.